Flip and George meet, fall in love and hold a party to celebrate their engagement. The next day the Earth enters a weird cloud in space which gives everyone three wishes. And while everywhere they look they see flying pensioners and visions of glamour where previously walked the dowdy, what do they wish for? Things for themselves or for each other? And do the things they wish for bring them closer together or push them apart?

Well I wrote this in January 2000 with the intention of bringing it to the Edinburgh Festival in August of that year. But what happened was that I got offered a part in a proper play called A Busy Day which was to be done in Bristol and could have transferred to the West End afterwards. This it did and, thanks to great work by my agent Jane Brand, I got my name in lights on Shaftesbury Avenue (which made my parents very proud) and we ran for the whole of the Summer. Obviously this meant no Edinburgh for me that year. But I missed it so much and couldn't wait to do it again. So I thought, why not double the workload? Karushi agreed to back a morning show of 'A Supercollider For The Family' as well as taking up an actual play of mine. One with more than one character!

Although I had written another show in the meantime, the giant robot romantic triangle 'The Lengths He Went To,' 'Three Wishes' was further up the queue and it was Erica's preferred choice. I had written the part of Flip for the fantastic comedy actress Janice Phayre and she agreed to do the show, which was such a weight off my mind. She was absolutely brilliant too. So many men came up to me afterwards and told me how they had fallen in love with her - I had to tell them that she had a boyfriend back in London and they skulked off. Janice was so funny, so light and just a joy to be on stage with. The shows just flew by.

Erica Whyman did another brilliant job of directing me (and Janice too this time; I had to unlearn my technique of pointing to an empty chair for times when another character was with me - she was right in front of me!) and more than a few people commented on how tenderly it was directed. Naomi Dawson designed the set and costumes and was just fabulous. She made globe lights out of coloured paper and marshmallow stools out of duvets and weak wood from Habitat. Marvellous. Malcolm Rippeth excelled even his own high standards with a lighting design that was atmospheric and moving. Simon Oakes and Adam Wolters wrote a fabulous score for the show which added so much to the mood. And Emma Barrow was the perfect stage manager - calm and completely in control at all times. Brilliant.

The show ran for two nights in early October as part of the Pleasance London Edinburgh Festival and it got a great reception. Big audiences and happy faces. Hopefully there is a future for the show now, maybe a tour in 2002. Radio 4 will broadcast it as an afternoon play in May 2002, and productions are being planned in Oregon and Spain. If you want to know about any future performances, or would like to book the show, please email me and I'll drop you a line.

Groovy! But in the meantime, be careful what you wish for...

UPDATE!

The Oregon production happened in December 2002 and there's a preview page for the show here. The Art attack team did a wonderful job and there's still life in George and Flip's story. As of March 2003 I am working on a second draft of the screenplay, so fingers crossed.

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